


Every Other Freckle

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: I Don't Even Know, M/M, Poetic, Teenlock, angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 09:22:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3244427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They grew up at midnight, with the moon illuminating wet concrete paths and the ocean breeze ruffling through their hair, coating their lips with salt. Bruises forming on their knees, all battered and blueblackyellow. Mirroring the state of their own capricious, youth-filled hearts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Other Freckle

They grew up at midnight, with the moon illuminating wet concrete paths and the ocean breeze ruffling through their hair, coating their lips with salt. Bruises forming on their knees, all battered and blueblackyellow. Mirroring the state of their own capricious, youth-filled hearts.

They'd been here before, countless times. Never alone, though. No. John had never been here with him, not like this. They had been here with their families, long long ago; picnics and floral-patterned skirts swaying in the summer scented breeze, the clench of a child's fist rippling the fabric like wind on water.

They'd been here with friends. Campfires and beer, senses drowning out. Talking while the smoke filled their lungs and coated their tongue with the faint taste of decay and ashes.

But they grew up at midnight, with the sky full of ghosts and unspoken promises that were lurking at the back of their throats. Anxiety muting them both, fists clenching and breaths shaking.

* * *

**I**

There are a million freckles on his sister's face. A million dots, like fiery constellations and speckles of dirt. When they were younger, John used to connect them all. Lines forming patterns and angles, little dippers and the triangulum australe.

But John's not stupid, and John knows about stars.

All stars burn out, and maybe that's why she faded.

She was a supernova, rebellious fury and reckless abandon. A vicious cocktail of adventure and dissatisfaction. Because it's never enough.

When he is sixteen, the freckles are still there.

But the constellations are gone.

She's a clouded night, all foggy and grey and unreadable.

Sherlock told him she's trouble.

_(Do you know where the wild things go?)_

A savage in her dirty ways. She uses drugs, he told her. Drinks too much. And John believes him, because Sherlock knows. And Sherlock is always right. 

She's a whirlwind of too much and never enough, and when he's seventeen and watches her sneak out again, stolen money filling her pockets, he realises, he never even knew her.

_(They go along to take your honey)_

That's when he started to hate the night sky. When he stopped staying awake to see the Northern star claiming its position, like a dutiful guard. When he stopped scanning the cosmos for flashes of light and destruction.

* * *

 

**II**

 Every morning Sherlock wakes up to the sun repainting the walls of his bedroom the same shades of orange and red. It has always been like that, as if the sun would call for him and say _wake up, little one. Say hello to a brand new day._

His walls are red when he is Three and his mother picks him up and holds him close while his eyes are still wet from crying.

They are red when he's seven and John sleeps over for the first time, and they stay awake the whole night through. The red repainting John's face. Like a warrior, drenched in the blood of his enemies. 

They are red when his brother, Mycroft, wakes him up with a hug and a smile, and Sherlock looks at him with a mixture of admiration and envy, because his brother is all tall and smart.

He always wanted to be like his brother.

And it's sad, really, because when he grows older and becomes just as tall as Mycroft, and maybe even smarter, his brother isn't there to see it.

And red is the colour he starts to sleep through. He no longer gives a fuck about the red-orange-yellow rays that play with the shadows on his wall and fill his room with all their pretty glory.

Because everything is red in his life.

Red is the colour of his home. His skin when he forgot his sunscreen again. The ocean perfumed hair of his mother. The shells and stones John and he pick up at the shoreline.

And it's the colour of blood.

The blood that filled the lungs of his brother as his car crashed against the wall and it's the colour of the traces metal left on his skin. The exact shade of crimson that painted Jim's smile after he got into his first fight.

Sherlock's so sick of red.

* * *

 

**III**

John's not doing well in school.

He never has, really.

But he's getting worse, fails to concentrate or even listen.

Sherlock calls him out on it more often than not, but all John does is sending glares and angry cat like noises that escape from his mouth with a gush of air through clenched teeth.

Sherlock never had any trouble in school. He's their little genius, all facts and formulas.

John wishes he could be more like him. But that's not how this works.

They're absolute opposites, and that might exactly be the reason why they work out so well.

* * *

 

**IV**

"I've never kissed someone," John whispers into his ear. Blushing red like the can of coca cola he holds in his hand, eyes glued to the ground.

A giggle escapes Sherlock's mouth, but he quickly covers it up with a shaky cough and a shrug.

This is their thing. Sharing secrets; that's what friends are for isn't it?

Confessions instead of deductions. Because he doesn't have to read John. John tells him everything. From the thoughts that flicker through his mind ( _if air humidity is at a 100 percent, do you drown? )_  to the number of birds he saw on his bike ride to Sherlock's home ( _27)_. And Sherlock can only imagine it, the wind messing with the blond locks that somehow always smell of lilies, the other boy's eyes wandering around, the gleeful smile that cuts at the corners of his mouth every time he spots another pair of wings piercing the blue of the summer sky.

And he draws in a shaky breath.

"Neither have I," he answers, fingers fidgeting around nervously, for some reason or another.

There's a silence following that statement, a silence that seems to whisper _why don't we try it_.

Because they look at each other and he can see it written out clearly on the liquid coating of John's steel grey eyes.

Like a shark and the swimming, Sherlock leans forward suddenly. A leap into thin air, a sloppy mess of lips pressed together too hard and teeth clashing and blood rushing in his ears.

As they part, they giggle again. awkward and unsteady, fingertips trembling. He gathers his courage and leans in again, softer this time. fingertips wandering over the soft skin of John's face, tongue retracing the outlines of his lips. 

It's still a bit awkward.

But hey, Sherlock thinks.

This is what friends are for.

* * *

 

**V**

"Want to know something about the stars you see?" John asks, carefully observing the face of Sherlock that without a doubt would start to show off a childish pout in less than a second.

And he was right.

"No."

"Well, you're going to hear it anyways," John starts, grinning at Sherlock's glare.

"Do you believe in ghosts?" he asks, leaning forward a bit, still capturing Sherlock's eyes with his gaze.

Sherlock snorts, shoulders jerking upward as if to emphasise how ridiculous that notion really is.

"Why?" he asks, eyebrows raised, almost reaching the curls that stick to his forehead as a result to the salty ocean water. There are droplets dripping down his face. Rivulets running down his chest, disappearing beneath the waistcoat of his swimming trunks. Threatening to interrupt John's line of thought.

"Well, look up," he whispers, "And see a sky full of them."

Sherlock looks up, a cocky smile still on his lips, quickly fading as he sees - nothing.

"What am I supposed to see?"

John smiles, "Every star you see. They're millions of lightyears away. By the time their light reaches us, they're long gone."

Sherlock is still looking up into the night sky above Great Britain, but John's gaze is glued to Sherlock's face. To the sharp and pointy angles that make up his face, that appeared somewhere between last summer and now. He looks grown up. Older.

There's a fear filling his veins red hot, a sudden realisation accompanied by a sting beneath the apex of his heart.

He's afraid he will disappear. Just leave him one day. To go and explore the world, to hunt the bad guys.

To forget him.

* * *

**VI**

"Please don't go," John says, voice trembling. 

"I-"

"No," he interrupts. "Don't. Just tell me you'll never go."

Sherlock smiles, a shaky, tremulous smile of some sorts. Distorting his face in the harshest way possible, and the lie that leaves his lips sounds more like the truth when he closes his eyes and takes John's hand.

"I won't."

But he will, and he knows it. Everybody leaves. His brother, John's sister. Everybody goes, in one way or another. People are only meant to get together to grow apart.

He doesn't know why, but suddenly John's hands are on his cheeks, cupping his face while his lips press against Sherlock's mouth once again. It's an electric jolt that runs through his veins, a flash of heat parching in his chest, heartbeat stumbling and the feeling of John's teeth tugging at his lip sending a flood of blood to his head.

John pushes him back against the ground, lying down on top of him, hands on his chest now.

"I won't." He doesn't know why he repeats it, but after that he stops talking.

There has never been a need to when it comes to John.

Their best conversations have always been held in silence anyways.

Just this time with trembling hips and parted lips.


End file.
